finds in every American city at least, the temperament and
significance of another group in another city is not so much, and
yet it is. Long since Cowperwood had parted company with the idea
that humanity at any angle or under any circumstances, climatic
or otherwise, is in any way different. To him the most noteworthy
characteristic of the human race was that it was strangely chemic,
being anything or nothing, as the hour and the condition afforded.
In his leisure moments--those free from practical calculation,
which were not many--he often speculated as to what life really
was. If he had not been a great financier and, above all, a
marvelous organizer he might have become a highly individualistic
philosopher--a calling which, if he had thought anything about
it at all at this time, would have seemed rather trivial. His
business as he saw it was with the material facts of life, or,
rather, with those third and fourth degree theorems and syllogisms
which control material things and so represent wealth. He was
here to deal with the great general needs of the Middle West--to
seize upon, if he might, certain well-springs of wealth and power
and rise to recognized authority. In his morning talks he had
learned of the extent and character of the stock-yards' enterprises,
of the great railroad and ship interests, of the tremendous rising
importance of real estate, grain speculation, the hotel business,
the hardware business. He had learned of universal manufacturing
companies--one that made cars, another elevators, another binders,
another windmills, another engines. Apparently, any new industry
seemed to do well in Chicago. In his talk with the one director
of the Board of Trade to whom he had a letter he had learned that
few, if any, local stocks were dealt in on 'change. Wheat, corn,
and grains of all kinds were principally speculated in. The big
stocks of the East were gambled in by way of leased wires on the